Émilie du Châtelet > Quotes

“Let us be certain of who we want to be. Let us choose for ourselves our path in life, and let us try to strew that path with flowers.”
― Émilie Du Châtelet

“If I were king, I would redress an abuse which cuts back, as it were, one half of human kind. I would have women participate in all human rights, especially those of the mind.”
― Émilie Du Châtelet, Selected Philosophical and Scientific Writings

“It is the privilege of affection to see a friend in all the situations of his soul.”
― Émilie Du Châtelet, Selected Philosophical and Scientific Writings

“Translators are the traders in the Republic of Letters and they deserve, at least, praise for sensing and understanding their own forces, and for refraining from producing books themselves and carrying a burden that would crush them.”
― Gabrielle-Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil du Châtelet, Reason, Illusion, and Passion: Philosophical Works

“Our liberty is weak and limited like all our other faculties, (but) we strengthen it through the habit of reflecting on it and mastering our passions, and this exercise of the soul renders it a little more vigorous.”
― Gabrielle-Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil du Châtelet, Reason, Illusion, and Passion: Philosophical Works

“One may have preferences, but why exclusions?”
― Madame du Chatelet

“Let's think a little about why, after so many centuries, never ahs a good tragedy, a good poem, a respected history, a good painting, a good book on physical science come from the hands of women? Why should these creatures, whose understanding seems so completely similar to men, seem however to be kept behind the barrier by an invincible power? Tell me if you can.”
― Gabrielle-Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil du Châtelet, Reason, Illusion, and Passion: Philosophical Works

“...but in the case of contingent truths, that is, when something can exist in different ways, and none of its determinations are more necessary than others, the need for another principle arises, since that of contradiction vanishes... this principle, on which all contingent truths depend, and which is no less primitive or universal than that of contradiction, is the principle of sufficient reason.”
― Gabrielle-Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil du Châtelet, Reason, Illusion, and Passion: Philosophical Works

“Experience will teach us about the Physical qualities, while our reason will use it and gain new knowledge and intelligence from it.”
― Gabrielle-Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil du Châtelet, Reason, Illusion, and Passion: Philosophical Works

“Among all books, those of reasoning seem the most susceptible of good translations. Reason and morality belong to all countries. The genius of language, this bane of translators, is less noticeable in books where only ideas have to be conveyed, and where style is not the first merit, whereas works of imagination can be rarely transmitted from one person to another, for, in order to translate a good poet, you would have to be as good a one as he.”
― Gabrielle-Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil du Châtelet, Reason, Illusion, and Passion: Philosophical Works

“God's foreknowledge has no influence on things' manner of existence... For, God's foreknowledge is not the cause of existence, but is rather based on their existence.”
― Gabrielle-Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil du Châtelet, Reason, Illusion, and Passion: Philosophical Works

“From what has been said, it follows that the impossible is that which involves a contradiction, and the possible is that which does not.”
― Gabrielle-Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil du Châtelet, Reason, Illusion, and Passion: Philosophical Works

“I have always thought that the most sacred duty of men was to give their children an education that would prevent them, when they were older, from regretting their youth, which is the only time when one can truly get an education; you, my dear son, have now arrived at this happy age when the mind begins to think, and when the heart isn't yet subject to those intense emotions that will later come to disturb it.”
― Gabrielle-Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil du Châtelet, Reason, Illusion, and Passion: Philosophical Works